Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Posted with permission, though this may be in the wrong place.
Anyway, I will be getting help with my blacksmithing soon and will hopefully be offering my wares to the public. I want to make items suitable for the ranger in the woods, in camp, wherever. That is where you- the rest of the rangering community- come in. I am taking suggestions for what items I should try to make for the traveling/camping ranger. What items would you like to see?
I should mention that if I can get this off the ground, I will be willing to offer items to members here at a discount. All of you have been such a help to me so far and things just aren't that affordable out there, so this would be a way to return a little bit of the favor.

The first thing should be a steel striker for fire starting. I'd suggest you might want to devise something simple yet different than normal. A design specific to your interpetation of the Tolkien universe.

The second might be arrow heads, again a slightly different design then the norm. Give your creative juices some room.

Third would be a small camp/utility belt knife.

Keep us posted, I'm definately interested in seeing what you come up with.

Much to think about! I've got a couple of camp knives forged out of 12" files. They are annealed and ready for some shaping up and drilling for the handle slabs. These are for myself and my son. but I'll post pics to get some critique on them.

The fire striker is something to think about. First, I think I'll work on the basic striker to get the hang of it, but be thinking about the design of something more suitable to the Dunedain.

Arrowheads: The guy who has agreed to train me is really big into weapons of the migration era. I'm sure he can get me up and running with them once we get started.

As for something ranger-specific, I kind of have this idea that their items may be simple, functional in the field with a sense of royalty to them considering their lineage.

What do y'all think?

I was also thinking a combination knife/striker similar to ones used during the colonial/trapping eras might also be interesting. For those unfamiliar, they are small all steel knifes with a curved tail instead of a buttcap. The "tail" would wrap around the hand part of the way allowing the kinfe to be used normally and to be held by the "tail" while using the spine of the knife as the stiker for your steel.

Something like the one seen here midway down the page under Knives, Forks and Spoons:

www.crazycrow.com

I've been wondering about a knife sort of like that, but I didn't envision the handle being used as a striker. Not a bad idea.
If I can learn to beat my supply of L6 into submission, then perhaps some of those will be put on the short list of things to make.

WOO HOO! This has been a long time coming, but at last my son and I will be going to meet with the guy who agreed to train me. Things just have not worked out so far, but the room is reserved. My son gets out of school at noon on Friday and I, as usual, will be getting off work then. We'll eat lunch with my wife and daughter, then hit the road for a four-hour trip over Black Mountain, past Asheville and onward to the hotel. He's already told me to let him know when I've checked in so we can get into the forge that night!
I'll start a new thread with pics if I can back away from the forge long enough to use the camera.